Internet historical records reach ten petabytes

The Internet Archive celebrates its latest storage milestone

The Internet Archive announced that as of its event on Oct. 25, its records of web total ten petabytes of data.

Beginning in 1996, the Internet Archive has offered "permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format."

Essentially, the curators of the Internet Archive collect pieces of cultural data from websites that they deem relevant, and store them to be (partially) viewed on their website, The Wayback Machine.

While the ten petabyte milestone may not mean much to some (Facebook reportedly has stored at least 100 petabytes of just pictures and video), it's a valuable glimpse into the development of modern communication.

Of Internet past

On Thursday, the organization celebrated the occasion with a small get-together, where the team shared news of a new 80 terabyte database opening to researchers.

That particular data represents over two billion URLs from 2011.

The Wayback Machine also holds publicly available archives of billions of other websites from the late 90s and early 2000s.

Partnering with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, the Internet Archive hopes to "prevent the Internet... and other "born-digital" materials from disappearing into the past."